AP Photo

It is worth noting, four days into the air campaign against Libya, that we are just four days into the air campaign against Libya.

On cable news, four days seems an eternity. Hence the vein-popping impatience for Qaddafi to crumble, the outrage that Obama isn't doing something more quickly (just what isn't quite clear), the heaving sighs over the coalition's failure (after hours of meetings) to work out the precise procedures of command and control.

Yet as several Pentagon officials cautioned at the outset of this crisis, these things are complicated; they require coordination, which takes time. This fact of course inspired some of the more enthusiastic hawks to urge Obama to take action unilaterally"”which might have been speedier in the short run but a disaster in the...